


The Sum of Dreams

by black_hat_with_bells



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2011-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_hat_with_bells/pseuds/black_hat_with_bells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was never really his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinemoras09](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sinemoras09).



> An older fic about Adam's early life. The history in this is...humorous, most likely.

At the age of seven, he was told:

“Everything you touch turns to rubbish.”

Such was the declaration of the aged matron as she scrubbed the young boy’s hands till his skin turned pink. Soup, heavy on the lye…harsh stuff. Adam suspected that the matron used lyre so she could make the marks on the young hands sting more when she rapped him over the knuckles.

He never liked to show pain. He never liked to cry. Thus, his frequency in the matron’s presence in the first place, with his bum out in the air, bent over like an animal or a helpless babe.

Beaten. When the inevitable took place, he went on magic carpet rides in his head. He would memorize designs in the grim wooden panels. He imagined anywhere else but here, where he was, on the floor.

One day, he would be an explorer. An adventurer. He would go to a far away country and rescue a princess from a fire-breathing fiend. They would fall in love and all things going smoothly, live happily ever after.

Forever.

But the streets of his home, where his blood ran, only brought the end; they only brought death.

Livid in all its vengeful glory. People passed through Adam’s life like ghosts. They coughed up black death and withered in agony. They would sneeze and hack their lungs out as they made their way through the cobbled stones, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Curled up in a ball on his small blanket (soiled as ever), he wished he could help. He wished he had the power to turn things to gold.

Looking back on it, Yaeko wasn’t the first love that kindled in Adam’s heart.

His first love, in the way only a child could love, was a small girl, dark haired and dark eyed. She was like a porcelain doll and just as fragile as one. He would swing her on the rusted swing set as high as she would like, with his little muscles pushing and her little legs kicking. They both had dreams, of sorts.

In a place like the orphanage, dreams were the only place one could go. She was a doll but a tomboy as well. They would have sword-fights up and down the stairs and back again. There were treasure hunts, where the basement was the horde or the space under the stairs was a cave. They were both scared of the dark but they liked to be scared so they could comfort one another.

With her skin grew dark and red with puss and pox marks, he held her during the night, wiping back her brow and smoothing her hair. Her smooth smile was turning chapped and her breathing labored. The matron was tired, old, and rather sick herself. Maybe more in the area of the mind than the body. Maybe in the area of the soul.

Pain no longer moved her. She had seen too much.

So it was up to Adam to try and ease the girl’s suffering. Even the touch of blankets drove his only friend into a frenzy. Even the touch of clothes.

The matron walked in when he was carefully removing the horrible, scratchy fabrics, with his tongue out in concentration. He couldn’t sit down for a week. He was sore for two. And he could never see her again.

The orphanage was made for echoes. He could hear her sobs. Adam would try, and he was always caught.

Centuries later, looking back on it, he figured that he could have saved her, with this magical blood of his. At the very least, he could have eased her suffering.

It never occurred to him to try, even when he never got sick. When he could hold the very devil of a fever in his arms and not get sick.

It didn’t occur to him then because he was Adam. He was a grade-A fuck-up. He was not a hero. Everything did turn to rubbish when he touched it. The world would change. Trees would be cut down, wars would occur, and the air would resonate with the small of smoke, like sticky old London.

But that was a constant, right there.

His inability to affect his surroundings, move his surroundings. The tales go that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you could move mountains. That good people can avoid the bad things if they pray, if they aren’t evil.

Adam was, and never will be, sure of the state of his own soul. If Elizabeth was evil, then surely he was too.

They buried her in a bundle of bodies where they buried all the children who were of sickly constitution. By buried, ashes to ashes.

The dreams turned to dust that he could not hold in his small hands.

***  
At the age ten, he was told:

“Ah, this city is the pit of vipers,” the drunk moaned across the street, on the stoop where God and country could see. “Nasty, wicked people. No wonder we are all dying like dogs.”

Adam had watched this man for years after traveling the roads for work. He worked in the most dangerous of places. He half believed he wanted to be hurt. His craft work was never up to snuff. Shipping docks proved the death of dozens a week or so. No matter how many rusted nicks he managed to collect, there was nothing.

At least it would be interesting. It would have an air of tragedy, like the stories he used to read as a child. From tragedy, there was greatness, a romance that burned in his young heart in place of friends (all who leave, who never stay).

“Damn weak constitutions. Damn weak minds. This city has taken our dignity!”

“This city or all cities?” he questioned, one day. Curious.

The old gin drinker looked at him, blurry-eyed.

“We have a city of soot. Some—some, my lad—have a city of gold.”

This caught his attention. “Ah-hah. I imagine that would have made the papers.”

“These prudes you see. These whores you see. Why, in lands better off than us, there’s freedom there. The women are beautiful and dignified. They have eyes of jasper and lips of roses. English rose, my arse!”

He laughed and sat down for a spell. The man looked befuddled, fiddling with his torn gloves awkwardly, and yes, the geezer smelled of vomit and piss. Adam was immune to all that; indeed, he kept waiting for the strike-down.

Vomit. Blood in urine. The whole bag.

“W’here’s my manners?” the man inquired of the air and handed him a drink of gin. The matron strictly forbid such heathen behavior in the face of God. So Adam took a sip. It burnt like hell but oddly enough, he enjoyed the feeling in his head.

It was similar to those early years off imagination, only more seedy and adult. Like those sailors. Yes, yes. Like those tossers who thought they were above the world just because they’ve seen a few places.

Speaking of which.

“Tell me more. I think I could get a pretty pound for a jasper.”

“Ah, you laugh. But you haven’t seen them. I have. But they are beyond the likes of us. They are princesses. They are the only clean thing left that the world hasn’t set its eye on to destroy.”

“So you’ve met a princess, then? How does she care for men of few…virtues and teeth?”

“I lost everything to the demon of that. Once, I wouldn’t have touched the stuff.” The old guy grinned as if he had pulled a good trick on Adam. Adam grinned back and took another sip.

“Once I was part of the King’s prized sailors. I’d charted lands, you see. Lands were magic is.”

“Like that old fat man who comes down the chimney and eats bad children.”

“Like people who can do things they shouldn’t be able to do. I’ve seen people make pure metal float in midair. I’ve seen those carpets. I’ve seen people turn items to gold. I’ve seen them burn things, I’ve seen them strike people down with lightening from the sky. It’s true. All of it, true. I wish I could have seen further East though. Seems I will die on the street before I do.”

“What’s East?”

“The last undiscovered land by us. In a way, I hope it manages that status. But I have a token.”

Out of his bag, more horrible smelling than he was, he pulled out a small statue.

Adam stared in open awe, all his bluster forgotten. His expression seemed to take on a religious gleam.

The statue was of a beautiful woman with a pale face and dark hair. He had never seen anything like the manner of dress. The fabric seemed real, and the green was added by far more love than one would find in these parts. Her position was restrained majesty. Of beckoning.

“May I?”

The geezer seemed proud to have won Adam’s respect but it had little to do with the flesh-and-blood man before the youth. He placed the statue reverently in Adam’s hand.

“The East, you say.”

“Indeed I do. The last place where the British Empire hadn’t sucked the life out of the beauty, the mystery. The very, last Eden.”

Adam smiled beatifically and before the old man knew what had happened, the lad had disappeared down the street, mingled in with the crowds, and the beautiful jade statue had disappeared along with him.

***

At age eighteen, he was told:

“Get out, disease carrier. You smell of death,” the old matron kindly informed him one evening when she requested a private chat. She thought she would ask after the weather or his plans for life. In a few months, he’d technically be a man.

A good luck would have sufficed.

“I beg pardon, ma’am?” he stammered, clutching his hands together. He hadn’t his weakness but the eternal feeling of fear of closed rooms would haunt him forever. At age eighteen, he couldn’t know what forever was in terms of the body, the flesh, but in terms of the soul, he knew the horror of eternity.

“Don’t you think I know you visit those filthy, sin ridden dens of those vagabonds and whores? You don’t think I know where you get your money from?”

Adam gaped, his blue-eyes widening. He was dead broke, no a shilling to rub together, and this old lady who had raised him herself thought he was richer than the King?

“It would be news to me. I’d like to know.”

“The grave-robbing.”

He almost passed out. “Excuse me, you’ll have to say that again.”

“You heard me. If not, where you do get the money to indulge in your vices that will burn your soul in hell.”

Ah. He would never have the pleasure.

“Where did you get the notion? I’ve never been a frequenter of graves. Have you been there to know, ma’am, because honestly, I-.”

She held up an old cross between her fingers. Molding and rusted silver, crooked to match the quirk of her chapped mouth.

He couldn’t say a word.

“Been through my drawers, then. And here I thought the attraction was just to my bum. It was the pasty, white drawers, the entire time,” he muttered, rambling.

“Get out. I won’t have you bringing diseases in here.” Ignoring him. Like he was not important even though she might as well be sentencing him to death without a recommendation or money.

Adam wanted to say that for her information, he stole that cross off a very lively fellow—he could attest; one doesn’t usually flee from dead people.

It seemed like it wouldn’t help. He knew, in a way, that she had gotten the idea in her head when he visited the grave of his old, young friend.

Oh, to hell with you, the infernal woman who would rot away in her desk, in her dirty bed. No one would know who she was, who she had been. She was the evil, wicked wretch in the stories that tried to deter the hero. She’d die in pain, he hoped. She’d die alone, he prayed.

Not before she heard the stories of his life, and then—only then—she’d know how small she was.

He had been planning to leave, anyway. He had the world to see.

A world where there weren’t stupid, ignorant women to make him feel less than a man. It was lucky that he hadn’t left the statue within reach of her greasy grip.

***

At age twenty-one, he was told:

“Get out of the way, you bloody twit.”

“Oh, sorry. Sorry,” he said, and scrambled out of the way of the men. They lugged down the barrels of goods and one rolled his eyes. Well, his one eye.

Adam worked and worked to be a sailor.

He lifted and pulled and carted—bloody carted—again and again, back and forth, and sometimes, even up and down.

They thought he was too fair to take the baking sun. Too weak to pull the sails. Too scrawny. Too virginal.

He’d run to taverns with them, and hear of their stories, and drink with the worst of them. He took pride in drinking the conceited bastards under the table. Eventually, it became about the drinking itself.

The room he had managed to live in was a box, a casket of sorts. He could hardly stand being in it. The walls were a terrible white that seemed to stay at him, seemed to remind him of his sick, old, young friend. It was all around him, not touching him, but going past him.

With no windows, no one knew he was inside. No one knew he existed. No one missed him.

Yet it was painful. Distantly, he could feel the statue in his jacket pocket and the beauty of it and the nastiness and disease of himself. The tramp. The rogue. The thief.

Before long, the drunk.

He had needed money. The matron had given him the notion. He blamed her, every time, when he had to pay for his presence.

“Have you been with a woman, lad?” One man asked. He looked at the women, the English roses with thorns and faded beauty by a weathered fest of insects (hence, the English man. Case in point.) He didn’t want to contribute to their average-looks, their breasts sagging and voices booming like a tornado dropping from the clear blue sky.

“I’m waiting for the one,” he had answered honestly.

Last time, he had every spoken honestly about his feelings on the matter. Wouldn’t know what to do, they whispered.

Months and months bled into one long day of the same old thing.

Then one day, by chance, by rote,

“I need a man. One extra man only!” a harsh voice bellowed across the place where only the men with all the time in the world spent it. “One man to go to India. We are one man short.”

A young, red-haired fellow was on his feet before Adam could dream up the thought.

“Ah, well, you’re good enough.”

The red-head turned to gather his things and disappeared around back. Adam followed, jade-statue in hand. One hit to head, usurper of dreams was down and out. Unharmed though he’d have a hell of a headache in the morn.

Adam showed up in his stead, with the lad’s cap on.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Um, my friend, uh, James, got a little green around the gills. Right terrible headache. It just so happens I’ve got nowhere to be for the next few months.”

“You mean, nowhere you’re wanted…”

“Nowhere on land. Ideally?” he asked, hopeful, and stood up straighter.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I reckon. Come on.”

He hurried past the captain, his life finally starting.

***

Also, at age twenty-one, he was told:

“Good Christ, clean up this mess.”

Maybe he should have rethought the whole seafarer thing.

Magic carpet—infinitely preferable. Turns out there was something that made him sick. He hung over the side of the ship and got in touch with his inner feelings. His inner feelings were life-changing, and he wanted that all out in the open. He spent his time hurling over the desk, and even after being on the sea for some weeks, living the legend, he was the one who was sick most of the time.

All the time, actually.

He expected a sword too. He wiped his mouth and looked back to see the men laughing with each other, the subject himself. Naturally.

They liked letting go over the rope on the sails when he was on the other side. It would drag him about like a small girl by an over-grown dog. It should have hurt his hands but he never paid much mind. He tried laughing it off. Tried to see the humor in it, but it became clear they did not appreciate being humored.

Black-eyes, not withstanding.

Then he discovered something else. A rather potent something else. The distinct possibility that storms do occasionally come up and drag whole ships down to their depths.

“That looks, uh, ominous,” Adam said to the sailor next to him, pointing out a black, fierce storm in the distance.

“Oh, that. It’s just a wee bit of rain.”

Hours later, he was being pissed on by the universe. There was so much rain that the boat was going to sink. He was going to be eaten by monsters of the depths. The damn, damn, damn wee bit of rain was going to drown him. It so dark it appeared as if the night had eaten everyone else in the world but himself. The glimpses of barrels flying through the air, as if in retribution for all the times they were lugged around. The thunder sounded as if the very gods were angered.

He couldn’t hear over the hissing of the water, or the sound of his own cries, and stumbled forward to the deck, to make the dear, old captain take this seriously.

“Just keep looking at the stars, men,” the captain called out, appearing perfectly composed.

“WHAT BLOODY STARS?!” he bellowed. The captain looked back in disgust.

“I told you it would be bad luck to have a woman on board,” someone muttered. Before he knew it, his fist was in a bearded man’s face. The false teeth bit into his hand but he didn’t stop. He was out of himself.

“I’m the only one around here who has any fucking intelligence, you miserable fuckwit, if you were half the man I was, you wouldn’t be braiding your hair!”

He wasn’t sure if that made sense. He couldn’t tell as he was tossed below deck to spend the night sliding across the splintering, spinning hull from side to side.

He wasn’t alone by the end of it. Other men had balked. Other men seemed to know insanity when they saw it.

“What we need here is a change in direction,” Adam said, when the storm had quieted. “I think a new perspective would be in order. Someone…reasonable but not familiar with all of you. No bias, there, right…”

The captain found out about this little motivational chat. Apparently, democracy died with the Romans, and Adam sensed he was about to be fed to the lions.

When they reached land, he slipped off the ship quietly and was late getting back on.

Couldn’t be helped.

***

At age twenty-three, he said:

“All right. Just going to lay all the cards out on the table, because I’m going to go easy on you. I’m going to be sporting and-.”

The Japanese man’s arm moved like—well, to be cliché, like the fucking wind.

“Good! Christ!,” he yelped, feeling his own knife fly out of his grip. He peered in the direction of where the knife went and saw that it hung perfectly against the tree.

“That’s an excellent shot!” he exclaimed.

That was his introduction to life in Japan. He should have taken the hint.  
***  
Also, at age twenty-three, he rather tried to take the hint. But he was told:

“Sorry, mate,” the young captain in the blue coat said, loading up the barrel full of guns. “I can’t take you with me. No room in the ship.”

“Listen, I sold my quota. But these people don’t like to shoot each other like civilized persons. They prefer stabbing. As a matter of fact, they love stabbing. No reasoning with them.”

“You don’t understand the language, do you?”

“Now, wait. I do. The general idea of it. But not matter what the language, it just isn’t possible. I’ve held up my part of my responsibilities here, I promise. I’m ready to move on to happier days. I miss England, you see. I'll stand in the corner, I don't care.”

“I’ve heard how you handle your duties. Adam Monroe, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. I am too. Uh, you know me though? How are you familiar with me?”

The captain smirked, putting aside his barrel and studying him.

“And here I am, without an inkling to who you are,” Adam continued.

“What would you pay me? If I were able to let you on?”

His heart, dear god, he saw himself out of his body. He was dirty, he was starving, and he was damn, damn tired of being alone. He was tired of adventure, of women who would disappear during the night, and standing out. Oh, how he had wanted to stand out once…now it was driving him mad.

“I, I have this,” he said, sheepishly, and felt like he was betraying someone close to him. Someone who had stood by his side for ages. Adam took the statue with a heavy, numb heart (already drowning and withering by the great adventure, a young death) and gave it to the captain.

“Thank you kindly. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

“I have what’s left of my things a few miles away. I can go and get my bag before you can blink. I-.”

“-I won’t let you set foot on my ship because you are a deserter. You are filth. You’ve been blacklisted, friend. You’ve stolen from high-ranking personages from various countries, making national relationships very strained. You've once tried to incite mutiny against your standing captain. Do I really have to go on?”

“I like a joke as much as the next man, but that’s not funny,” Adam said, his heart sinking.

“You’re right. It’s not very funny at all, is it.”

“I can explain. I got confused when I was tra-.”

“A thousand deserters try to get back on ships daily,” the man said and that’s when Adam noticed the old (fashioned now) gun behind him. “They have all sorts of tall tales. Some good. Some not-so-good. You think you’ll be telling me anything new, then?”

He could have sworn the man had heard his heart beating. He licked his lips and forced out a strangled ‘Not much of a storyteller.’

“Thought so.”

“But I’ll tell you like it is. I’m desperate, here. Have some pity for a fellow Englishman, for god’s sake.”

“That captain you tried to mutiny against? He’s my older brother.”

“Oh.”

Adam looked at the statue. The man grinned somewhat toothlessly.

“Now, run along with you while you still can.”

He went.

***

Again and again, at age twenty-three, each day was a horror.

Because this place was a horror.

Sitting out in the middle of a field with nowhere to go—as still as death—Adam looked around at the dark outline of the trees and the impossible quiet. They had mentioned demons, and if there were any things like that left, they’d surely be here in the trees.

He had spent the weeks wandering around from village to village, scavenging fields and attracting stares that he figured would end up emphasized with instant death. For his time there, he had stayed near the coast, staying where those like him were. Now, however, since he had built up an unexpected reputation, that seemed like suicide.

He had tried to keep the humor of the situation in his head. Lots of fresh air here. Better for his health in the long run.

But all there was about, the feeling in the air, was strangeness and coldness, and Adam figured that he had truly wrecked things this time around. He had managed not to cry for the hour or in front of the man who had basically sentenced him to death.

They had behaved in such a way: like he was the worst failure of a man that they had ever seen. It wasn’t as if he had done anything that a million other men hadn’t done before. He was every bit as good as they were, better even.

At first: sure, it was funny as hell. A bunch of rogue, wandering, infamous sailors, a bunch of backstabbers and thieves, thought he was a bad person.

Then…a bunch of backstabbers and thieves thought he was a bad person.

He felt the warmth behind his eyes, and cursed, laying on his back and wondering when he’d die: of starvation, of loneliness, and of shame. The old matron was laughing in his head. The old, poor idiot of a bastard was laughing with his gin.

He looked at the great East and feel in hate with the world and that stupid old man on the stoop. Oh, god, if he had a knife and that bastard was within reach…

Now, he, shamefully, abandoned the pretense of being ‘quite fine, actually’. He covered his face in his hands and began to shake. He didn’t even know he was crying until he heard the weak noises he was making, gasping and cringing noises. It wasn’t as if he had anything to lose. He had given up the statue like a cringing worm, for nothing. His last promise of that piece of heaven, that promise of magic in a hopelessly ugly world.

People everywhere were just that, people. Nothing different, nothing new. They were all universal bastards. He was by far worse.

He was a coward. He was weak. He was an idiot. He had no place in the world to go, like the old captain had said. No place would have him. His own parents had probably known. He could never help. He could never do better. He never made a damn difference.

He would have killed for a drink.

Adam did not keep track of how long he was collapsed in a rice field, but he noticed a presence, the sense of someone, and looking up, he noticed a woman standing in the field, with a paper lamp in her delicate hands.

She was beautiful, and he hated it. She had dark-hair, wrapped up in a long ponytail behind her that fanned out like silk. It was as if she were made of darkness and light together, stepping out of a cocoon of pure, pure silk. She was…formed like poetry, but there was something most definitely not delicate about her. She was small framed and curious as hell. Another tourist for his misery.

He wanted to inform her that it was in bad faith to watch a man sob but couldn’t find the energy. Instead, he glared and looked as menacing as possible.

She spoke and it was absolute gibberish, in the tone of a concerned question. Oh, it made him feel ridiculous.

“I don’t understand, you twit,” he informed her, coldly, motioning to his ears. “Just go away. Go on and get out of my face.” He waved her away with wild, flailing motions with his arms, and thought that should make things pretty damn clear. It was possible that she thought he was mad.

He covered his face with his hands and hoped he would have some dignity left, to cry in the mud in peace if he so pleased.

Something rustled to his left and he peeked through his hands.

Then he jumped to his feet! She had stolen his pack! He had been sitting right by it, and she stole it!

“HEY!” he yelled out, in a slightly choked voice from his earlier hysterics. “Hey, that’s mine. That wasn’t for sell! NO. SELL!”

She kept walking, her hair swishing from side to side and his pack over her slim arm.

Adam was at a loss. He may be a worm but he wasn’t a woman-terrorizing worm. “You can have it, I don’t even want…NO. No, I’m going to follow you until you drop it. Can’t ignore me forever!”

And so he did. He followed the infernal woman, nearly falling in the holes of the fields, holes that she dodged with skill and familiarity

He briefly chanced a show of insanity, of yelling and flailing about, running up behind her, still a ways a way, but oh, intimidating. Insane with rage. She threw a rock at him in return, striking his knee.

He yelped and retreated, only to return to the trail, glowering.

They reached a small house in a village that he had not frequented. Nervously, he watched the shadows between the buildings, expecting to be caught and beaten. Not stocks this time…perhaps boiled in hot water till death. She had been sent as a siren, and he had fallen for it.

They entered the small door, pushing aside the material, and Adam was met with the heart-stopping sight of an older man sharpening a blade. His throat narrowed and he simply stood in the doorway, still as a rabbit.

The girl simply spoke casually and pointed to him. He got the impression she was relating a tale of bringing a dog home off the street. The father looked at him briefly then shrugged, continuing with his work.

The girl met his eyes and motioned to a small table with mats. There was a soup bowl there, and she motioned to it, impatiently.

He looked to the bowl, to her, back to the bowl again.

“Poison, for me? You shouldn’t have, little bit.”

She shrugged, seemingly reading his expression. He caught a shadow of a smile on her pretty, china-skinned face and he realized his own face was still tear-streaked and his eyes were probably beet-red.

He quickly sat down to hide his face. Then noticed.

“The soup has no meat…dear. I could boil water, too, if I wanted.”

She bent to take the bowl away. “Now, now! I didn’t say I didn’t want boiled water, did I?”

Adam ended up having three bowls of soup. He fell asleep on the floor, and that was his first, rather inglorious, introduction to the woman who should have let him wander the earth without ever having to bear the pain of knowing her.

***

At age twenty-four, he declared:  
.  
“Now, this is the universal human language, this is.”

He took another swig of sake. He was beginning to finally settle into his new life here. In a way, he was a bit of a celebrity. The language had become manageable, and he hadn't moved on from the small village, yet.

He was the local story-teller, believe the irony or not. He told stories from the books he had read, about the fire-breathers, the sword-fighting, and the treasure-hunting. Children would gather around him, but not just the kiddies. The adults were in awe of him, gasping when he acted out his own stories.

He changed his name to something more intimidating, something with more of a poetic kick.

Takezo Kensei had a ring to it. Yes, plain, old Adam ‘Turncoat’ Monroe was becoming a thing of legends.

Only not to one person. A certain girl.

Yaeko was the name of that girl. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she had seen him cry like a baby. Maybe it was something else, but he was relatively sure about this fact.

So it was very frustrating not to be able to tell his stories around her quaint parallel to a tavern.

He’d drop in every once and awhile, to keep her on her feet.

“Hello, my lady,” Adam said, watching the men in the place with distrust. “I realized I hadn’t seen you in a day.”

“How lucky for me that you remembered,” Yaeko answered. No smile for him. He shifted back and forth nervously.

“Ah, yes. I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“Oh, I heard your stories from halfway across the village. Unless there’s some other braggart in our midst that I’m unaware of.”

Adam frowned. “No, just me and myself. Though I wouldn’t say…braggart. Such a word doesn’t suit you.”

She left him standing there in the middle of the place, and he was forced to follow. It seemed that was always the way.

“Okay, why are you mad at me today? Because I’m breathing? Well, I’m sorry, I’ll try to stop.”

“I’ve heard stories as a child. I’m an adult now. It lost its appeal long ago.”

“Then don’t listen. Simple. Anyway, since you’re upset with me today, how can I make it up to you?”

Yaeko looked amused, staring at him longer than was necessary. God, she made him nervous. All she had to do was tell about their meeting, how he came to be here, and the whole thing, his life here, would go up in smoke. He wondered why she hadn’t.

“You can do something for me, Kensei. There’s a field out there where the men of this village work day and night. You could work there, and I’d feel more kindly towards you. You live among us. You should do something to give back, no?”

“I have an adverse relationship with work.”

She sighed and was about to turn away from him.

“All right, all right. I’ll do it tonight. You’ll come with me.”

“Excuse me?” Yaeko gasped. He looked at her in confusion.

“Well, you don’t seem to believe a word I say. I’d think you’d need to see my suffering with your own eyes.”

“Very well,” she bit out, defiant to some imagined insult. The woman was slightly cracked. He didn’t know if he hated it or liked it. Instead, he reached out and captured her small hand in a handshake to seal the deal.

“All right, then. Meet you out there. Bring a drink or two, right.”

***

Still, at age twenty-four, he relived his old stint of crude manual labor. Adam walked out to the field with a spade in hand and with dread in his heart.

His hands were already becoming too callous from touching the damn thing. “You actually kept your word. I’m surprised to see you, Kensei,” a silken voice observed dryly.

“I’m wounded, Yaeko. Well, maybe not. You know, though, I’m doing a special favor for you. This a pay-back for all the drinks. For anyone else, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be elsewhere,” he said, looking at the field in terror. “Somewhere far, far away.”

She was silent for a moment, and he turned to look at her. At night, she was a different woman. Her softness was alluring, her independence was nearly spiritual among the quietness of the night.

He could see the outline of the body around the light of the lamp, curved with more human, warm touches than any art. He looked away.

“All right then. Let’s do this.”

Yaeko sat down on the grass lightly and beamed up at him. “This shouldn’t be so very terrible.”

“Really? How do you figure?”

“I couldn’t help but overhear that you were attacked by a demon at sea. Surely, that’s a bit more challenging.”

“Oh, that,” Adam said, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, that was a bit of a trifle, there. I was almost worried.”

“Hmm, tell me. However did you survive?”

“You want to hear my tale? As in actually listen?”

“As in actually listen.”

Adam was stunned. This was amazing, unprecedented. His best audience yet. At the same time, his voice caught in his throat, his heart a close second, and his arms felt very heavy for some reason.

Yaeko was looking up at him with dark, deep eyes, with her head at a tilt, her beautiful hair falling down the side giving the encompassing feeling of softness.

“Well, I didn’t…um, I need to get myself into the mind-set of reliving such a terrifying experience. It’s not for a woman’s ears.”

“But for a child, it is fine. I see. Your opinion on women, Kensei, is lacking.”

“Um, for you, though. Why not, an exception. You’re out here anyway. Why are you out here?”

“You requested my presence. Remember?”

“Right. I did at that. Um. Well, sure. Where to start? There’s layers, you see, in visceral effects. I mean, some bloke had his arm ripped clean off. Perhaps I’ll just keep it simple.”

Yaeko merely smiled and waited.

“All right. Okay. There I was,” Adam said, getting into character. “Minding my own business, tending to the other men. They were a bit wayward, and they looked up to me, you see. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was raining. The wind, though, was perfection. Suddenly—  
\--His manner changed, and he grew tense, his eyes wide and his hands in the shape of claws. Yaeko continued to calmly observe him, all the while.

“—Parting the sea like the hand of God, the horror emerged from the sea. It had seven heads, each with a mouth filled with fangs the size of swords. The tentacles followed and gripped the hulls in a deathly hug. I felt the wood groan and the whole thing, whole bloody boat, was about to collapse, sending us all down to the bottom, forever. The men, ah, they just fell to pieces. Can’t blame them. But I…I had a sword.”

He gripped the imaginary blade tightly. “And I kept my wits about me. There was an oil there, on the deck, and I rushed!!”

Adam ran across the way, Yaeko following his motions with her eyes.

“And I was almost crushed by a stray tentacle. The horror, oh, the horror of that limb. It had collections of gold and embedded skulls still latched on in their last, desperate hour.”  
“The people bit the monster?”

“Wait, what?”

“The skulls, latched on?”

“People do the maddest things in the face of atrocities. Anyway, there I was, blocked from the only hope of me, my men, everyone. I jumped!! Into the air, and made it. I made it past the limb and dipped my sword into the oil. Then I set it on fire!”

“In the rain, there? That's quite an unusual fire. I've never heard of a thing like that."

“It wasn’t raining much. More like a drizzle. Anyway, sword’s on fire. I stabbed at the limb, cutting through the darkness with the light. I slice and slice and slice. I was out of myself, I admit. It was all quite upsetting. But then the beast submerged itself again. To wait another day.”

Yaeko looked down. “I see. That is dreadful.”

“Hmm, yes,” Adam said, still nervous. “But enough about me. What about you?”

“I don’t imagine I’d be interesting to a traveler such as yourself.”

“Oh,” he said, at a loss. “Well, that’s not quite right. I’m…”

She looked up again, her eyes alert and watchful and sharp. Like a severely angry cat. “I’m appropriately interested. In a very appropriate manner.”

“I’d like to hear something boring about you.”

His breath caught. “Hmmm? Uh, I don’t understand.”

“Something completely normal. Just a piece of the person who lives the normal part of your life. I mean, you weren’t slaying monsters every moment of every day. I’m interested in your home. What was it like?”

“I never really had a home, technically. I was born wanting to get out of it. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Honest. It was like every other place. People would go around, manage their own lives, and avoid being troubled.”

“And that disappoints you?”

“I just want the poetry reading, you know. People wax on about…weeds. They wax on about weeds, about the beauty of said weeds. I don’t see it. I see a bloody weed. So I want the poetry. That’s what I’m looking for. You do know what poetry is?”

“Though I go to you ceaselessly along dream paths, the sum of those trysts is less than a single glimpse granted in the waking world,” she recited, with a slight half-moon smile.

The words were like pearls from her lips. He stared. He stared some more. He…stared, feeling naked, stripped away by a lone picture of gentleness, of evermore. Dreams forever. Life in a blink of an eye.

“You thought that up right now? Like. Now?”

In regards to me. In regards to you. He couldn’t ask.

“I heard it. It is not mine. Not my words. Not my experience. But just to say, that—yes—I do know what poetry is.”

“But damn. That was bloody amazing!”

She nodded. “It was, at that.”

“Then I guess you could understand. Have you ever wanted to leave, Yaeko?”

“I’m happy with my home. It makes me sad that you were unhappy with yours.”

“Not…I never said unhappy. I said…well, I don’t know what I said. Sometimes I don’t think well, or before, or something, especially around…people in general.”

“You seemed to be doing well this morning. And the morning before. And the one before that. I have the sense that people like you but they would like you more if you were honest with them. It’s a sign of respect, to be honest with others.”

“Because you are so fond of me, right.”

“I would like to be.”

Oh. God. What in the hell? His heart did not exist anymore. It had gone somewhere else. Her eyes—rare sight, rare—were kind, warm.

“I like that you’d like to be fond,” Adam said, looking at the sky. In general. “That would be, well, surprising, but wonderful.”

“So there’s nothing about your home that’s interesting?”

“Actually! There is one thing. Get up.” She frowned, the warmth sucked backwards into stone.

“Don’t be scared, uh. I’m just going to show you. It needs to be demonstrated.”

That didn’t seem to be encouraging. He held out his hand, trying to be respectful. Yes, respect. That was all that she really wanted. Or not. Or something. Um, respect is a good place to start. She took his hand. He was suddenly irrationally, just irrationally, afraid he would do something wrong. Just immediately, when she touched him, things would fall apart. She’d know things about him that were below her, and she’d be repulsed. He had nothing to offer her. He maintained his hold, however, and calmed himself. She seemed to relax her guard slightly, thoughtfully.

“This is a rich, traditional…tradition called dancing.” His voice, where was the bloody thing? It was in his chest. What the hell was it doing there? It was similar to a chicken fleeing back to the coop.

“I know what dancing is, Kensei. In fact, many here would.”

“Right, I was just talking. You see. And you can call me Adam. I don’t mind. Kensei is my fighting name. Adam is my dancing one. Ahah.”  
He was going to mess up. He knew it. “I see. How do we dance, then, in your country?”

“Well, you just…uh, first you have to—(let me lead, he thought, then envisioned the destruction that would be sure to follow. Oh, scratch that.)—put your hand on my shoulder.” He gently, carefully led her hand to his shoulder.

"Not a death grip of death, please. A man’s neck is his weakness, you see.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Oh. Dear. God. This was the most frightening experience of his life. Steady there, Adam. Steady.

“All right. Another weakness, one of many. Just relax. It’s like swimming. Just go with the flow.”

“Oh, it’s like drowning, right.”

“Not when I’m here.” He pulled her closer.

“Yeah, you have to be a bit closer, you see, otherwise we might as well be half way around the world.” He thought she’d be a cold woman. Turns out she was warm, just subdued. Exactly like that light she had carried when she had found him. Bawling.

“Yes, yes. And I put my hand here.” With his life in his hands, literally, he placed on hand on the small of her waist. Were his hands too callous, too sweaty, too cold, too everything but the good things…he maintained. Must maintain. “And basically, we go in a circle.”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“No, no, it’s fun. You have to get circling.”

In actuality, Adam had never been to a dance. He’d, in fact, never been anywhere near a dance; not in a ten-mile radius. Ever. He hoped he wouldn’t be too bad at it.

“Here we go.” He stepped forward, and instinctively she stepped back. This dance, obviously, was made for them. It made him a bit sick that he thought of it. They danced better than most at any dance would. They were dancing to another kind of music. One of deep despair, resentment in open notes, one with deep desire and struggles in the undercurrent. It was stressful to say the least.

Yaeko handled it better than Adam. She smiled brightly, and he felt her hair tickled the knuckles of her hand. Her body fit against him, and for once she wasn’t fighting him. She was warm, and in his arms, and trusting, her body just allowing him to led her. So, in typical Adam fashion, he lost the plot and made a mess. His hand, perhaps due to gravity, moved a little too low. She slapped him hard, her eyes flashing with what looked like hurt. He couldn’t tell, as his head was rather spinning. She rushed off, leaving him alone, sitting in the dirt, wondering at where he went wrong.

No. Knowing what he did wrong.

That was so much worse.

 

***

At age twenty-five, when he heard about Whitebeard for the first time by a small boy, he said: “Can I handle him?” Adam repeated, feeling that faint rage he had become acquainted with on the ship. “I, handle him? It’s more of a case of can he handle me. I won’t go easy on a man called Whitebeard, for god’s sake.”

He got a response back.

His first thought was ‘Oh. Bugger’.

***

Also, at age twenty-five, he addressed his first group of followers:

“So we are going to do this,” he told his men. His men. Yaeko had been kind enough to offer her astonishment that someone had actually been man enough to stand up to Whitebeard. He owed her one.

They stared at him and he stared back, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world. One of them raised their hands. “Yes, you. The bloke in the nice fanged helmet.”

“What is your plan, Kensei?” Ah, they doubted him.

A man who had survived the seas alone, come all this way; that should have given him some standing. It seems that wherever he went, he was a mess. A problem. This time, he truly didn’t want to appear like a liar to a woman.

So he continued. “To make a name for myself first. Allow me to elaborate. What is more intimidating to a man who thinks he owns the world?”

“Simple. That the world owns him.”

Kensei blinked. “Yes, sure. Good answer. But at the same time, that his enemy is un-killable. In a word, men, we are going to wage a bit of a mind game.”

The plan was the Kensei would be one of many. A literal everyman. He’d be a decoy who would lead the army to fight. And when he died, then, it would be considered an unholy miracle when he was right back at their throats the next day. Pretty brilliant. Only. Only the village boys—they were boys, not men—used Yaeko’s father’s swords.

Whitebeard made the connection throughout the year.

***

At age twenty-six, he had the woman—one he was possibly too fond of—glaring at him with hate.

Adam had strolled through the village after a particularly gruesome battle. (or so it had seemed from where he had been watching)

Yaeko had not run to meet him, as he would have imagined a countless thousand times before. She walked, slowly, deliberately, as if she did not want to be near him. As if she was in mourning.

He frowned and waited for her.

“My father. He was taken this morning by Whitebeard’s men.”

Adam’s mouth fell open. He had no words, no words of experience, stories, or poetry. Yaeko’s eyes faded from hate to grim and dead disappointment.

“What have you done?”

***

At age twenty-six (the worst year of his ever-life), he hid.

Adam stayed away from the tavern, from Yaeko, and from the village. He saw her eyes before him every time he closed his own. He nearly…he wondered about the possibility of death.

Of gracefully bowing out.

He then realized he didn’t have a bloody sword to do the deed with, anyway.

All he knew was that he couldn’t stand for her to look at him that way. He must do something. Something. Anything. He’d do anything just to make it better, please.

Though the aid of sake—quite a bit of it—he managed to have his humor back.

He marched through the village and into the tavern.

“Hear me out, Yaeko,” he said, direct and fierce. Everything he had always wanted to be. “I will save your father.”

A drink sailed past his head and crashed against the wall. Several people fled. He wished she would bloody stop spinning around the room.

“I mean it. I know what happened, I…didn’t mean for it to happen, all right. I liked your father. He was a sweet old guy.”

Yaeko padded out of the corner softly, staring at him with deadened eyes.

“I swear. I swear on every mother’s grave in the world now and to come. Please. I can…”

“Can you? With more tales. With more lies.”

“All I need is a sword.”

She hurried across the room in a flurry, scared the hell out of him. Etc. Only her hand was on his heart and she stared deep into his eyes with the true look of a last hope. It was the most unbelievably, horribly beautiful thing of darkness he had ever seen.

“Is this the truth? Are you being honest with me?”

With her hand on his heart, he said he was. What else could he say?

What do you tell a girl who asked you—you of all people in the village—to save their father? What can you really say? NO. I will not save your father, I will sit in your quaint but rustic tavern and we will listen to his last cries of mortal terror together while watching the sunset.

Then add the prospect of her saving your life, once. Then add the prospect that you might love her.

It would have been rude to say anything less. “Absolutely. Yes. I will do everything in my power to help your father.”

Not exactly a lie at all.

“All the other men I’ve asked, they’ve refused. They have family’s of their own.”

Oh. Grand.

“I don’t have anyone else but my father.”

He was quiet. He knew he was going to mess up. He felt the fear that was typical of him. He hoped his decoy was good this time. It was his way of helping. It was the only way a man like him could help.

“I have the best blades for miles. Come with me, I’ll help you pick one. I have the perfect one, Kensei.”

She said he would be her godsend if he managed to save her father.

Adam cursed his life and what it had become. A fairytale without a spine, without a heart.

As per usual, he failed.

***

“It’s been months! My father could be dead by now!”

He was drunk. That hurt things, but what else could he do? His head hurt. He hurt. Death was getting very close, he could feel it.

Well, he could feel something bad coming.

“Now, now. I highly doubt that. Those blades they have a still quite top notch. I’m sure he’s alive.”

He smiled reassuringly and held on to his drink. He might need it.

Yes, it made him depressed.

“I’m trying. I really am.” And something was happening. The rumor of the undefeatable Kensei was spreading like wildfire and the men of this beast were actually staying away from some of the territories.

Just not this one. If only she could have some perspective on the matter.

“Maybe it’s time you accept things as they are. Learn to live with the less than pleasant trials of life. I still do—think he’s alive. I just don’t know if he’ll be alive with you. If you understand my me-.”

She knocked the drink out of his hands.

It certainly wasn’t a surprise when she told him she never wanted to see him again. It made him feel vile.

By the same measure, he wasn’t a miracle worker. The feudal lord had rows upon rows of fully trained men. He’d like to see her try.

He thought these things drunk.

He made sure he was going to continue thinking them. She wanted to fight Whitebeard herself. She could, he thought, and do better.

She had more fire in her than he would ever have as long as he lived.

His thoughts, he could not bear them.

He drowned them like the worm he was.

***

During the worst year of his life,

What could he say?

He met a man with amazing abilities. A man who was very…optimistic. A man who claimed to be from another time, but apparently, it would be from another reality.

He made a face like a fish when Kensei revealed himself to the man who had messed up the entire battle with Whitebeard. So. Carp, then. Swimming against everything, swimming against time, but here’s the thing.

He got into Adam’s head. He did one of the worst things anyone has ever down in centuries to come.

He gave Adam hope.

When Yaeko looked at him, with her eyes alive, her eyes a miracle…

 

***

Near the end of the worst year of his life:

“I thought you had…stopped looking for sake, Kensei,” Yaeko said, touching his shoulder briefly with her hand. He felt the heat through the clothing, the gentleness of her attention, and felt—for once—like a man.

Like a good man.

“Sometimes even I need a drop of courage,” he said. “I find it makes me better than myself. I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”

Her face grew pinched in frustration. It seemed that without Hiro, he could do no right. Blinking quickly, he shoved that thought away, looking at the drink and wanting it more than a dying man would want water.

“I meant that as a compliment. Uh, by the way.”

“I don’t need a compliment. I’ve had plenty of men do that.”

Well. Hell. Never mind, then. He smirked and went to sip, and found his drink being stolen from him by a delicate, gentle flower. What in blue…

“You are better than you think you are. I have faith in you.”

“You have faith in the idea of me, Yaeko.” Adam had had plenty of that, as a matter of fact. Not that he was keeping count. “That’s a fair bit different than me, the man. The scoundrel, remember.”

“I was mistaken. I thought great men had no flaws. But it is those who have flaws and the strength to stand against them that are the true heroes. I was foolish at first. I wonder if you like me for it. I was…ugly towards you.”

He stared, his heart beating oddly fast, and then shifted on the grass, focused on just the boring grass. Anywhere else. Oh, just a bit out of his league, a bit over his head. He could have used some help here. Really. Where was Carp when you needed him?

“I was the one who was a bit of a bastard.”

“No, no. I was hostile, petty.”

“I was a smarmy idiot,” he declared, putting some gusto behind his words.

“I was a silly woman.”

“I was a buffoon. A wanker, straight out, first class wanker-.”

She had look of confusion on her pretty, perfect face but it certainly didn’t deter her. “I was a bitch.”

Adam looked up suddenly. “…well, here-…”

She crossed her arms.

“And never. That’s what I was going to say. Right.”

Yaeko laughed. He jumped. He had never heard her laugh before. Not for him.  
This time it was true.

“I saw that you were a good man, you know. I know you never will believe it. But I saw that you were good. I just didn’t think you would show me that side of yourself. I didn’t think I was…”

She lowered her head. He placed a hand under her face and lifted her head up. This didn’t seem real. But he so wanted it to be real. He didn’t want to lie in a white, closed room with just a statue, something close but worlds away from him.

"Someday, Kensei. I want you to be happy. I want to show you that life can be like the poetry you wanted it to be. That even the smallest things can be special."

So close but never truly his.

"I already have that."

It was true. The idea of love had made everything beautiful. The cherry-blossoms, the sky, the clouds, the wind, the people. Everything in his eyes was seen anew.

“You are my goodness. No, don’t deny it. You were what I’ve been looking for…my whole life.

I think I love you.”

She smiled, half laughing.

“I think I’d like you to think that.”

They kissed.

Sometimes he thinks he dreamed it.

***

At the age four hundred, there is only one thing of worth to say. One thing that is always consistent and never fades. Engraved in the stone of his heart.

Hiro Nakamura is a cruel man.

**Author's Note:**

> The line of poetry Yaeko spoke was from 'A love poem of Ono no Komachi'


End file.
